Electroautomatic document collector and distributor



Dec. 9, 1941-.

W. C. GIBSON ELECTROAUTOMATIC DOCUMENT COLLECTOR AND DISTRIBUTOR I l 3 Sheets-Sheet 1" Filed March 1 8, 1940 Fjj.

lunwroe 9, 1941. w. c. GIBSON 2,265,473

ELECTROAUTOMATIC DOCUMENT COLLECTOR AND DISTRIBUTOR I Filed March 18, 1940- 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 9, 1941. w. c. GIBSON 2,265,473 ELECTROAUTOMATIC DOCUMENT COLLECTOR AND DISTRIBUTOR Filed March 18, 1940 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 rgw Amp/roe Patented Dec. 9, 1941 UNiTED STATES PATENT OFFICE ELECTROAUTOMATIC DOCUMENT COLLECTOR AND DISTRIBUTOR 2 Claims.

My invention relates to devices that may be made to operate electrically on an endless railway suspended from the office ceiling or from any desirable special structure therefor, not interfering with the normal trafiic of the ofiice and adapted in combination with coacting appurtenances electrically operative, to collect and distribute various documents from and to a central station and from and to other designated, individual stations along the course of said railway. And the principal object of my instant invention has been the designing and development of an electrically operative composite mechanism, adapted to work together in the collection and distribution of ofiice documents to save time and expense in the transfer of said papers between part of this specification, is a practical device embodying the aforesaid novel means and other new and useful details of construction, arrangement and combination of parts, all of which together with their functions, will be described in detail with reference to said drawings and will be definitely pointed out in the claims that follow this description, so that any person skilled in the art may be able to construct and use this invention.

In said drawings,

Fig. 1 is a plan View, in vertical projection, of the endless railway on which the document-conveyor cars are electrically operated, showing three document-conveyors thereon and some of the individual stations at desks along the railway line.

Fig. 2 is a side elevational view of a part of the endless railway and the electric trolley systern, showing the flexible wooden band on which the flat trolley wires are mounted, also the celling line and the long steel cable attached thereto, as Well as the short suspension wires for supporting the railway, its cars and trolley system. In this Fig. 2, also, are shown two individual stations at desks and a document-conveyor installed in its operative position on the rail.

Fig. 3 is a side elevational View of my document-conveyor car and a fragment of the rail on the underside of which the car runs. In this Fig. 3 are shown the operative electric motor of the car, and its driving and bracing wheels and carbon brushes and the pick-up and distributing channels installed under the car.

Fig. 4 is an elevational View of the front end of the conveyor-car, showing the worm-gear between the two driving wheels, the four idle bracing wheels, the post carrying the carbon brushes and the three pick-up and distributing channels installed on a plate under the car. In this Fig. 4, also, is shown a cross-section of the wooden band on which the trolley wires are installed.

Fig. 5 is a side elevational View in detail of one of the carbon brushes that ride continuously on the flat trolley wires; the casing thereof being sectioned to show the brush and the spring pressing it. V

Fig. 6 is an elevational view of one of the individual stations along the railway line,'showing the attendants desk, the elevator-post, the pickoff channels, the elevating motor and its supporting post with a pair of coacting solenoids and a two-way switch for controlling the motor.

Fig. 7 is a plan view in vertical projection of one of the pick-off and release channels open, to be mounted on the elevator arm shown in Figs. 6 and 9.

Fig. 8 is a side elevation of the pick-off and release channel shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 9 is a side view in detail of a portion of the elevator-post, partly in elevation; the casing being sectioned to show the threaded elevator-rod and the threaded clamp and its horizontal arm and its pick-off and release channel which move up and down as the threaded elevator-rod is turned.

Fig. 10 is a plan View of the pick-off and release channels installed on a plate fixed on the bottom of each car; showing the bottom of the channels, the pick-off slot and the spring-pressed release latches pivoted in the bottoms of the channels. Fig. 11 is a detail view in elevation of the front of a fragment of the lower portion of the elevator post, showing the spring-pressed lower-limit switch open, stopping the elevatormotor.

Fig. 12 is a detail view in elevation of a short section of the endless railway showing the rail and its vertical flange and the flexible Wooden band, the flat trolley wires installed thereon and the brush-post of the conveyor-car with the brushes thereon, and metal supporting strip for railway parts.

Fig. 13 is a detail view of a cross-section of the parts shown in Fig. 12.

Fig. 14 is a detail view of an electrically-open ative device with a pair of coacting solenoids and a connected two-way switch.

.Fig. 15 is an elevational view of the back of one type of a document-holder, showing the pickoff dowels set in the upper portion thereof.

Fig. '16 is an elevational View of the side. of the document-holder shown in Fig. 15, showing the spring-pressed clip for holding. documents in transit.

Fig. 17 is an elevational view of the back of another type of document-holder, showing the spring-clip for hanging on the pick-ofi channel. Fig. 18 is an elevational view of the side of the holder shown in Fig. 1'7, showing near the lower end thereof, the spring-pressed clip for holding documents in transit.

Fig. 19 is a diagrammatic representationv of" the electric circuits involved in the automatic. operation of the elevator mechanism of Fig. 6.

This invention has been designed and experimentally developed in its details of construction for the purpose of producing. at. a minimum of cost a, durable, useful and efiicient electro-automatio document collector-and-distributor for eneral use in large oioces; and sales-rooms and in other apartments where it would be convenient tor letters and; papers to be automatically collected and distributed. And with said purpose and the special objects aforesaid in View, I will. now describe myinventionmore fully in detail, pointing out the new and useful features at the construction and the operation of the individual parts. and the combination thereof, as

illustrated. in the drawings hereinabove described,

in which similar letters and characters refer to similar parts throughout the several views.

Inthe invention and development of my new eleotro-automatic document colIector-and-distributor, for the sake of economy in production and efiiciency' in operation, I. have designed an endless railway i as shown in Fig. 1 and having one rail suspended from the room-ceiling or from any desirable special structure therefor as shown in Fig. 2,, and, not interfering with the normal trafiic of the oflice and, in combination with other coacting appurtenances electrically operative, adapted to collect and distribute automatically various documents: and small packages from and to a terminal station and from and to other designated, individual stations along the course of Document-conveyor cars The document-conveyor cars, 2a, 2b and 20,

that I have designed for" service in my equipment for automatically collecting and distributing documents from and to the difierent stations on my railway line, all have the same size, construction and appurtenances. Each one, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4-, is equipped with a small electric motor for operating the car provided with aworm and its worm-gear 50. mounted on the driving shaft. 51). And mounted on this shaft 5b are two metal driving wheels, 5o, 50, provided with rubber tires which contact the under side of the flat bottom of the rail 1, which is an inverted T as shown incross-section in Fig. 13.

To ensure a firm contact between the rail 1 and the driving wheels, 50, 50, I have installed on rigid brackets in the car a pair of idle bracing wheels, 5d, 5d, provided with rubber tires and adapted to rideon the upper side of the horizontal flanges of the rail 1. And, also, for bracing against the side-movement of the car along the rail 1, I installed on rigid brackets in the car a pair of idle rubber-tired horizontal wheels, 5m, 51', designed to ride on each side of the vertical flange of said rail. For electric current to operate the car I have installed in a predetermined place in the car a rigid post 6 on the upper portion of which I have mounted five spring-pressed, carbon brushes, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 63:, extending out horizontally from the brush-post 6 to the wooden band 4 on which the trolley wires, 4a and 4b: are installed, as shown in Figs. 2 and 12. The brushes, 6a. and 6b, ride along continuously in contact respectively with the upper and the lower trolley wires; said brushes being connected with the wires 6.3; and 62 running down the post 6 to the motor of the car, as; shown in Fig. 3., but the other brushes, 6c, 6d and. 6x. make, contact in termittently with taproot-switches dy, 4y, do and Ag, 4y, 4y installed. on the wooden band 4 along the railway line for certain purposes which I will soon describe under the individual, head of elevator mechanism. Said trolley system is energized from an adjacent electric source through the supply wires. lit, in, shown in Fig. 1.

Every document-conveyor car is equipped with three or more. similar pick-on and release channels 8-, 8,, fixed longitudinally, a predetermined distance apart, on the under side of a plate fastened to the bottom at the car. The front ends of these channels have broad, bevel-ed openings to allow the document-holders, 9, 9', shown in Figs. 16 and 18 respectively to pass readily into slots oi the channels. And on each. one of these pickofi and release channels, I have designed a spring-pressed latch 8a operative on a pin-tlehinge on the bottom of the channel and reaching across the slot of the channel. and adapted to prevent any document-holders that have entered the channel-slot, from passing therethroughuntil av station is reached where said documentholders are intended to be automatically released. And for such stations I have provided the means for releasing them, a tappet -plate lib fixed on arm H.

The exact manner in which the channels, 8, 8, support a document-holder, 9-, 9' may be more clearly understood from the following: The attendant at any of the individual way-stations or at the terminal station on the railway line, first clasps the documents that he desires to send away in the spring-clip of the holder 9 or 9'; and then hangs the holder 9 in his pick-off-and-release channel mounted on the arm I I at his station. He places the holder 9 between the wings Ho and Ho of his channel. so that the opposite ends of the: lower rectangular dowel-pin of the holder 9 shown in Fig. 15, rest on the wings Ma and I lo of his channel, to be picked ofi. by one of the pick-ofi-and-release. channels of the on-coming car. If the station attendant uses documentholder 9- he will, by means of the side springclip 9.a, hang the holder on the inside of wing Ho, so that the holder 5' will hang in. the long channel-slot between the wings, I la and lie with the top dowel-pin S'h extending across. the slot in his station-channel so that said dowelpin will be caught on the wings of one of the pick-citand-release channels of the on-coming car. When the car-channel is passing his station. the

shank of the holder 9 or 9 slips automatically between the wings of the car-channel; and as the shank of the holder is too wide to turn between the wings of the car-channel the dowelpin across its top rests on the wings of said channel and slides back on the wings of the channel; and the shank of the holder strikes against the spring-pressed latch 8a, fixed across the carchannel 3, and rides along with the car. If other document-holders are picked off from other stations along the line by this same car-channel, they will slide back against the first ones, and all will be released at the designated station where a bafiie plate III) is fixed to intercept the spring-pressed latch on the car-channel carrying said document-holder. When the outer end of the spring-pressed latch Ba on the moving car, strikes the bafile plate IIb, the inner end of said latch swings forward clearing the slot in the car-channel so that the document-holders are released as they strike the wings of the station channel Ila and He, on which they ride down toward the desk It until released by the automatic action of arm I2 which forces the Wing Ila of the station-channel to swing open so the document holders drop on the desk I!) of that station.

The elevator mechanism To raise documents from an attendants desk Ill to the passing cars overhead, I have designed a novel elevator automatically operated by means ofa reversible electric motor Illa, and intermediate electrically-operative switches. The elevator is mounted on a supporting post fixed adjacent said desk, and consists of a vertically-disposed tubular casing lIlb enclosing a threaded rod lllc installed in thrust ball-bearings at the top and at the bottom. The threaded rod IIJc carries a threaded clamp ltd slotted to match and correspond with the threads on the rod Iilc, so that, when said rod is turned one way the clamp Illd will move upward and when the rod is turned the opposite way, the clamp will move downward. This threaded clamp Illd extends out through a vertical slot Illz in the front side of said casing where it is rigidly attached to a vertically-disposed metal shank I: longitudinally mortised at either end to receive a straight vertical bend of a horizontal arm II. This metal shank Illa: is designed to move up and down along the vertical slot in the casing Illb; and to prevent its fluctuation from side to side I have fastened an outstanding vertical rib IIlm on each side of said slot. And on the horizontal arm II anchored in the vertical mortise of the shank Illos, I have mounted station pick-off and release channels Ila, Ila of the type shown in Figs. 6, 7 and 8, and tappet-plates III), III), to open the springpressed latches 8a, 8a. on the pick-off and release channels, 8, 8, on the cars.

Line 4a connects with the solenoids 3a and 31), line 41) on switch and armature #1 and line 42) on the opposite end of reversing switch 30, thence through switch 30 to motor.

Lines 4a, 3 and 4 are of the same polarity and operate as follows: Car on mono-rail closes momentary tappet switch 4y on line 3 for up-trip, and supplies current to motor until limit switch Ifly at top is opened. After the car passes the station, it closes the momentary tappet switch 4y which puts the current in the solenoid 3b which causes the reversing switch 30 to reverse the motor for the down-trip and supplies current until the limit switch lily at the top closes shunting the current to the line 4a; and solenoid 311' places the reversing switch 30 in the proper position for another up-trip.

Now for the control of the reversible electricmotor Illa, I have designed the electrically-operative device 3 provided with a pair of coacting solenoids, 3a and 3b and a connected two-way switch 30. This device 3 I have mounted on the supporting post adjacent the reversible motor Illa and connected up the solenoids in circuits from the tappet-switches set at certain raised places on the wooden band 4, and energized from the trolley wires. One of said tappet-switches would be placed at a predetermined distance before the car. reached the station and the other one after the car had passed the station. The former would energize solenoid 3a which would energize the motor Illa to turn the threaded rod Illc to force the horizontal arm II and its station pickoff and release channel Ila up to meet the passing car to exchange documents. As the arm I! reaches its maximum height on the elevator, it trips open a limit-switch Illy on the upper end of the elevator, cutting the current from the motor Illa. And after the car passes the station, its brush strikes another tappet-switch which energizes momentarily the other solenoid 3b which throws the two-way switch 30 to its other contact reversing the motor Illa turning the threaded rod Iflc in opposite direction which forces the shank I01: and its horizontal arm II down again to the position shown in Fig. 6, and the lower limit-switch Ills has been forced open by the shank Him, as shown in Fig. 11, to stop the elevator motor Illa; and the inner, hinged side of the station release channel I la has been forced open by the arm I 2a, allowing any document-holder that it may have picked off from the passing car to fall to the top of the desk Ill. When the channel Ila was coming down from the passing car it was closed, as shown in Fig. 9; but as it reached the lowest place on the elevator it was then opened automatically by means of a springpressed lever I2 which I designed to be mounted on the side of shank Illa: in a pintle-hinge. The little wheel I2b on the inner side of the lever rolls smoothly up and down on the outside of the elevator casing and the station pick-off channel remains closed as shown in Fig. 9 and the dowel pins in the upper ends of the document-holders, 9, 9, keep the holders from dropping through the station channels until the channels are nearly down to the attendants desk when the small wheel I2b rolls up on a raised tappet It, as shown in Fig. 6, and the lever I2 is forced out and by means of its arm I2a forces the inner side of the channel open at the top far enough to allow the dowel pins of the document-holders to drop through; and the holders and documents therein drop to the desk. On the horizontal arm II, I have fixed a baffle plate IIb designed to intercept the spring-pressed latches, 8a, 8a, hinged on the pick-off and release channels 8, 8, on the conveyor-cars, so that any documents collected or placed thereon may be left behind at any designated station.

Now the operative relationship of lever I2 and arm I2a to the post Illb and to the wing Ila of the station-channel may be more fully understood, when we notice the raised tappet strip fastened on the lower front portion of the post Illb and see that the lever I2 with its attached roller I2b is continuously pressed against the casing IIlb by means of the torsion spring I2e, as shown in Figs. 6 and 9, and we notice that the channelwing lia hinged on arm H in the pintle Hh is continuously held in its closed position by means of the torsion spring lld, as shown in Fig. 9; for the channel-wing Ila will remain closed until pushed open by means of the horizontal arm l2a attached in pintle-hinges to the upper end of lever 12 and to the lower end of the channel-wing Ha. Now the roller lZb on the inner side of the spring-pressed lever l2 rolls smoothly up and down on the outside of the elevator-casing 10b allowing the station pick-off channel to remain closed, as shown in Fig. 9, while the dowel-pins in the upper ends of the documentwholders 9, 9' keep the holders from dropping through the station-channels, but when the channel is almost down to the attendants desk l8, the wheel 12b rolls up on a raised tappet strip lfit, as shown in Fig. 6, pushing the spring-pressed lever l2 out a little way from the casing 1%, which forces the arm Ho, and the lower end of channel-wing II a outward suificiently to swing open the upper part of said wing allowing the document holders therein to drop to the attendants desk. The electrically-operative device 3 shown in Figs. 6 and 14 is composed of a square plate, as shown, and two solenoids rigidly mounted thereon in the positions as shown. And the plungers of said solenoids are hanging from pintle-hinges fixed at the opposite ends of a horizontal strip rigidly mounted across an upper segment of the rotary circular plate 30. On the backside of the circular plate 3c are mounted two switches, so set that when the solenoid 311 on the left is energized, the plunger of said solenoid strikes inwardly rotating the rotary plate 30 to the left, closing the switch on the left backside of plate 3c and opening the switch on the right backside of said plate. And when the solenoid 317 on the right is energized, its plunger strikes in and rotates the rotary plate to the right, closing the switch on the right backside of the rotary plate 30 and opening the switch on the left backside of said rotary plate.

Different cars for dz'fierent stations on same line Each of these document-conveyor cars, 2a, 2b and may be selected and marked to collect and distribute documents between certain designated stations on the same line, passing all other stations without collecting or distributing documents. lowing way: The cars on the line may be numbered and the stations on the line may also be numbered. Now each car carries on its bottom plate three separate and similar pick-off and release channels. be selected to transact the business of collecting and distributing documents between some of the stations designated on the line and any one of the three pick-off and release channels on that car maybe chosen for this specific business. Suppose the middle channel on car 2a is selected for this purpose, then from all the other stations on the line the middle channel Ha would be removed, then the car 2a would pass all said stations without taking or leaving any documents. Now, we might select car 2b and choose the rightside channel for the transaction of business with some of the other designated stations, then from the designated stations all the left-side channels Ila would be removed from the horizontal arm l I. We now have left car 2c for the transaction of business with remaining stations on the line; but we must now make use of the pick-oil and release channel 8 on the left side of the car. And

if we want two of our conveyor-cars to collect and This process is accomplished in the fol- Consequently, any one car may L distribute documents at one set of designated stations along the railway, the designated stamatic document-collector-and-distributor for use in oifices and sales-rooms. But in the description of my new and useful electro-automatic document-collector-and-distributor for offices and sales-rooms and other places, as set forth in the foregoing specification, it should be well understood that the specific details of the various parts of the instant embodiment of my present invention, as I have illustrated in the drawings thereof and fully described, are not to be considered as limitations in the construction of my new device; and that while keeping within the scope of my invention and claims, I may make desirable modifications in these details to facilitate quantityproduction or to economize in the fabrication of the parts thereof, provided I keep within the spirit and scope of my invention and claims.

Now, having thus described the various features of my new invention, the detail construction, arrangement and combination of its parts, as well as their functions and the ways and means of assemblage, operation and application; those features and accessories of my new device for the electro-automatic document collector-and-distributor, on which I desire Letters Patent granted to me, I have set forth specifically in the following claims.

I claim:

1. An electro-automatic document-collectorand-distributor of the kind described, consisting of an endless railway of the single-rail type suspended from an overhead structure at a certain height and adapted for carrying a plurality of electrically-operative document-conveyors, otherwise called cars; a trolley system of energized electric wires and a plurality of tappetswitches with their connected circuits, installed in predetermined places on a flexible insulation band rigidly connected with said single rail, all along the upper side thereof; a plurality of waystations along the railway line, each station being set adjacent the desk of the station-attendant; and an elevator fixed near the attendants desk at each of said way-stations, electrically-operative and automatically-controlled, said elevator being adapted to raise the stations pick-off and release channels high enough to exchange documents with the pick-off and release mechanism of the passing car and to bring the received documents down to the attendants desk; and means for operating said elevator automatically as said cars move along the railway.

2. An electro-automatic document-collectorand-distributor, according to claim 1, including a document-conveyor car provided with an electric motor for driving the car, including a worm and worm-gear to give the car a predetermined speed, and a pair of rubber-tired driving wheels to roll along on the under side of said rail, and two pairs of rubber-tired bracing wheels designed to operate in service contact with the upper and side surfaces of said rail, said car having installed therein a rigid post provided on the upper portion thereof with a plurality of spring-pressed carbon brushes designed to contact the trolley wires and tappet-switches installed along said flexible, insulation band for purposes described, a plurality of pick-off and release channels fixed longitu- 10 

